Caleb Barton is my great*4 grandfather. Recently, one of my distant
cousins has raised some questions about he and his family. I thought it would
be worthwhile to do some detailed investigation into this and to document what
we can learn about him, his wife/wives, and children.
Gravestone Information
I thought it would be good to start with a review of gravestones in
Kent, CT, the small town where he spent most of his life. There are three major
cemeteries in town, one at the Congregational Church, one on Skiff Mountain,
and one at St Andrews Church (which I will not list here as none of Caleb’s
family were Catholic). There are also a number of small private cemeteries, but
no Barton family members are found there. There are also two different sources
for grave information. The most recent one is find-a-grave which often has
pictures of the gravestones, but for Connecticut there is also what is known as
the Hale Index, a listing of all the grave markers written in 1934 by someone
going through each cemetery row by row and writing down what they found,
including such things as “broken stone” or “unreadable”. Here is a composite
list of all the Barton family members in Kent.
Note that “ae” means “approximate age” and this is subject to some of
the same vagaries as ages in the census records, so date of death is likely to
be quite accurate since it is recorded at the time of death, but age is not so
accurate.
Skiff Mountain Cemetery
·
Almira Barton, ae 55, 9 May 1858, wife of Caleb
Barton
·
Caleb Barton, ae 104, 12 Mar 1883
·
Henrietta Barton, ae 2, 22 Sep 1845, daughter of
Charles and Lucy
·
Henrietta Barton ae 14 mo, 30 Aug 1847, daughter
of Charles and Lucy
Congregational Church Cemetery
·
Anna Barton, ae 76, 8 Feb 1882, wife of Caleb
·
Charles Barton, ae 68, 8 Nov 1889
·
Elmore Barton, 1831, 1907, Husband of Sarah E
Cook Barton
·
Frankie Barton ae 3 mo 13 days, 18 Mar 1872, son
of Elmore & Sarah
·
Frederick E Barton, ae 30, 18 Feb 1895, son of
Elmer & Sarah E
·
George Barton, 1827, 22 Oct 1903 (Civil War veteran)
·
George W Barton, ae 9 mo, 20 Feb 1868, son of
Elmor & Sarah E
·
Henry F Barton, ae 28, 1 Nov 1888, son of Elmore
& Sarah E
·
Joseph B Barton, 1868, 1927
·
Katie Barton, ae 35, 24 Nov 1878, wife of Egbert
·
Lucy Barton, ae 50, 10 Aug 1875, wife of Charles
Barton
·
Mary F Barton, ae 6, 12 Jul 1860, daughter of Elmore
& Sarah
·
Peter Barton, 11 Jul 1862, son of Elmor &
Sarah E
·
Polly M Barton, ae 67, 17 Mar 1866, wife of
Caleb
·
Sarah E Cook Barton, 1636, 1906, wife of Elmore
·
Sherman Barton, 1862, 1939, husband of Virginia
A Barton
·
Thompson Barton, 1834, 1909
·
Virginia A Barton, 1867, 1948
There are also two graves in other nearby cemeteries which may be of
interest in this research
·
Harriet Marie Barton Palmer, ae 74, 10 Oct 1917
·
Francis C (Fannie) Barton, 1836, 22 Dec 1880,
wife of William Parker Waldron (the find-a-grave entry has some further information
(mother of Lucy, Julia, Delilah, Charles, Edward & William Henry, daughter
of Caleb and Almira Beecher Barton))
One of my concerns when gathering the above is because of the age
differences between Caleb and his wife Almira, and because he lived so much longer
than her, that he might have had other wives either before Almira or after she
passed away. The picture of his grave shows that he and Almira had two stones
which shared a base, but that is probably because he purchased the single base
with two stones on it at the time of her death in 1858 when he was nearly 80
years old, not expecting that he would live on for another quarter century. But
he may have gotten lonely without her and remarried. The below analysis of census
records will answer that question.
Census Data from 1850 on
Next, I thought it would be useful to use both the
annotations on the gravestones together with the 1850 census (the first one
which listed everyone in the family instead of just counts by gender and age
ranges) and try to build the start of Caleb’s family tree.
In 1850, Caleb is shown as the head of household
consisting of he, his wife, and 5 children as follows:
·
Caleb, age 60 (born in NY, both parents from NY)
[note that his age here is about 10 years different than that on the gravestone,
can’t be sure which is correct at this point]
·
Almira, age 49 (born in CT, both parents from
CT)
o
Elmore, age 20
o
Sally, age 15
o
Mary, age 10
o
Egbert, age 6
o
Harriett M, age 3
In the 1860 census, Almira would be no longer living.
Thus, we find Caleb (then age 70) with his next wife Polly (age 61) and
children Thompson (25), Egbert (17) and Harriett (14).
In the 1870 census, Polly has also passed on, so we
find Caleb (age 80) with third wife Caroline (age 61), living with Egbert who
is now married to his wife Catharine (Katie), and their children Lewis and
Josephine.
Finally, in the 1880 census, Caroline has also passed
on and we find Caleb (now listed as age 95) with his final wife Ann (age 73).
Using this, together with the above gravestones we
have the following family tree:
·
Caleb (1779-1883) [but birth year very suspect
and more like 1790!]
+ Almira [Beecher] (1803-1858)
o
Elmore (1831-1907)
+ Sarah F [Cook] (1836-1906)
§
Mary F (1854-1860) dy
§
Henry F (1860-1888)
§
Peter (1862-1862) dy
§
Frederick E (1865-1895)
§
George W (1867-1868) dy
§
Frankie (1872-1872) dy
o
Thompson (1834-1909)
o
Sally (1835-1922)
o
Francis C (1836-1880)
+ William Parker Waldron
o
Mary Jane (1840-1903)
o
Egbert John (1844-1928)
+ Catharine/Katie ____ (1843-1878) (born
to foreign parents)
§
Lewis (1868-)
§
Josephine (1870-)
o
Harriett Marie (1847-1917)
+ ____ Palmer
·
+ 2nd wife Polly M [Walker] (1799-1866)
·
+ 3rd wife Caroline [Palmer] (1807-1873)
·
+ 4th wife Ann/Anna [Douglas]
(1807-1882)
Census Data before 1850
Before 1850 the federal census did not record all family members. Only
the name of the head of household was recorded, together with counts for
various gender/age-range categories. However, since we have a pretty good
family tree already built, let’s see what else it might tell us.
In the 1840 census, Caleb is listed as head of household. He is listed
with an age of 40-49 and his wife with an age of 30-39. There are five children
with the following demographic: M 5-9, M 10-14, M 15-19, F <5, F <5.
These would line up with the known children as follows:
·
M 5-9 – Thompson, then age 5
·
M 10-14 – Elmore, about 10
·
M 15-19 – unknown, see explanation below
·
F <5 – Sally, then age almost 5
·
F <5 – Francis, then age 4
Similarly, in the 1830 census, Caleb is listed with an age of 30-39,
his wife is 20-29, and he has 3 children M <5, M 5-9, and F <5. This
would be respectively Elmore, the unknown male, and Sally.
The oldest boy is most likely Charles, who with a date
of birth around 1825 would then be 15 in the 1840 census and 5 in the 1830
census. This fills in one of the major holes in accounting for all those with
gravestones above. Thus, we would add to the family tree:
o
Charles (1821-1889)
o
+ Lucy [Waldron] (1825-1875)
§
Henrietta (1843-1845) dy
§
Henrietta (1846-1847) dy
Cleaning up
loose ends
The only individuals in the two Kent cemeteries now
unaccounted for are George (1827-1903), Joseph (1868-1927), Sherman (1862-1939)
and his wife Virginia (1867-1948). Further research showed that none of these
individuals was related to Caleb.
I have also done some further research and filled in
the maiden names of the 2nd-4th wives of Caleb above.
I also checked several family trees and other
information in ancestry.com and the above all seems correct. Besides not being
sure of the exact date of birth of Caleb, there are a few instances of the
birth years of his children also being off by one or two years, but as noted at
the beginning of this research, that is not unusual. I’m pretty certain that
the four wives and eight children of Caleb are all correct.
Since I have confined my research to Kent, there is of
course other information about who Caleb’s children married and what other
grandchildren he eventually had. But the above gives a pretty complete and documented
picture of him as well as some insight into the type of research that one must
do to complete and verify just this one little bit of a family tree.
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